Feds say website launch rushed

More testing was needed

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR
and STEPHEN OHLEMACHER
the Associated Press

Published: October 24, 2013;Last modified: October 24, 2013 11:24PM

WASHINGTON — Contractors who built the Web portal for the Obama administration’s health insurance marketplace said Thursday the site’s crippling problems trace back to insufficient testing and changes that government officials made just prior to going live.

Who’s to blame? The first congressional hearing into what went wrong dug into issues of website architecture and testing protocols — but also restoked the partisan battle over President Barack Obama’s signature expansion of health coverage for millions of uninsured Americans. Republicans who’ve been trying to kill the program the past three years sounded outraged that it is being poorly carried out, while Democrats jeered them as political hypocrites.

What was clear after more than four hours of testimony was that the contractors had only partial answers, and only the Obama administration can eventually put the entire picture together to explain the botched rollout.

Better times are coming, said executives from CGI Federal, which built the HealthCare.gov website serving 36 states, and from QSSI, which created a component that helps verify applicants’ incomes and other personal details. They said problems are being fixed daily and expressed optimism that anybody who wants coverage will be able to get it by Jan. 1.

“The system is working, people are enrolling,” said CGI vice president Cheryl Campbell. “But people will be able to enroll at a faster pace.”

Asked for a timetable, she side-stepped, saying: “I don’t like to raise expectations.”

The online insurance markets were meant to be the portal to coverage for people who don’t get health benefits on the job. Middle-class people are to pick from subsidized private insurance plans, while low-income people are steered to Medicaid in states that have agreed to expand that safety-net program.